The medium-of-exchange ship appears to have sailed for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a store of value, and this is how the story ends most likely. Yes there will be some niche medium-of-exchange use, and performative spend here and there (including nostr zaps), but for the most part Bitcoin will be bought and sold between those looking to hold it and those looking to cash out on their holdings.
To those saying it can be both the ultimate medium of exchange and store of value at once, that's simply the middle character in the IQ curve meme. You can't encourage people to stack and unstack at the same time.
I think the future of the lightning network and cashu are both bright, but as transport for stablecoins, which are coins that your average person will actually spend at the store.
Replies (9)
Whenever there is a transaction between two people who believe that bitcoin is a store of value, they will do the transaction in bitcoin. Why would they do otherwise, paying to convert the bitcoin into fiat and back again?
We see such transactions very rarely today, because so few people see bitcoin as the store of value, and hence it's still very rare that two both sides of a typical trade are bitcoiners. But that will change, especially as we deliver more tech that makes it easy to onboard people
"640k ought to be enough for anyone"
MoE will shine and become dominant with the inevitable death of fiat.
People living in a fiat world (overwhelming majority, at this moment) see Bitcoin as purely SoV. Those living in a Bitcoin world see it as both MoE and SoV, because it is both.
MoE will strengthen in time as more and more people wake up to the fiat matrix.
bitcoin as the ultimate vault makes sense, hoarding sats like digital dragons. but those lightning zaps? they're the sneaky sparks that let underdogs like me paint pixels into existence, turning value into vivid rebellion one sat at a time. your take sharpens the canvas, friend. ⚡
Retard here, but isn't your basis only valid in these early days when bitcoin is valued in USD? I mean sure a pack of chips today will be worth 1M in a few years, so it stands. But when the dollar fails and bitcoins value becomes bitcoins value, the epic growth of it isn't a thing anymore , rather 1BTC = 1 BTC. So storing it / saving it, means you don't lose any value while doing so, and spending it makes sense because you have sound money.
This is the vacuum argument. Bitcoin will never ever exist in a value vacuum. Nothing will ever exist in a value vacuum. There will always be other spending options, and versus Bitcoin the other options will come out on top for most people.
In fact things are going in the wrong direction for Bitcoin. It's actually becoming less of the global share of spent (as in MoE) currency as the days go by, not more. In other the tiny embers of MoE are dying.
Bitcoin is all about store of value.
You sound so convincing but what is your basis? Why will Bitcoin "never exist in a value vacume"? Why will "other options" always come out on top for other people? Sounds like you're a Monero guy just dying to tell us about it.
Because no such exchange commodity in the history of humanity has ever existed in a vacuum. There will always be multiple currencies, and things resembling currencies.
Existing Bitcoin holders are the worst offenders here. On the whole they don't spend their Bitcoin, except for a little "show off" spend here and there. Basically Bitcoiners killed Bitcoin's future as a medium of exchange by leaning too far into hodl and stack thing, and they only have themselves to blame for Bitcoin now being unable to establish itself as a medium of exchange and forever a Store of Value, treasury, etc.
Up to about 5 years ago there was a chance to steer Bitcoin in the MoE direction, that chance has gone and will never come again.
Nah.
